earlier this month, i was lucky enough to go out to sea ice school on a warm gorgeous day.
after a half day of in classroom, our group ventured 2 hours across the sea ice to the hutten cliff field camp, where our on site training took place. on the way we stopped for a needed pee break. here is a photo of my co-worker, marty (a fellow minnesotan), and i standing in front of the looming mt. erebus.
our training site was located just at the base of the mount erebus glacier tongue. sea ice cracks are here pretty easily identified from the surface but in order to truly see how deep they are we cleared them of snow. (don't be deceived by the photo below, we actually used shovels--marty was just prodding to make sure solid ice lie below the snow.)
cracks in the sea ice literally look like stair steps when they are dug out. once we reach the bottom stair we then use motorized drills to determine the ice thickness. the detachable drill bits each measure 1 meter; we link them together so that in total they measure over 10 meters! knowing the depth of the ice helps us determine which vehicles can be driven across the cracks. although the sea ice is five meters thick in this location, the crack was too wide for even the lightest vehicle to cross.
our instructors also taught us a variety of ways to anchor tents in the ice; ideally even the fiercest storms will not be able to pull well anchored tents.
at the day's end we pulled our haggland (the orange vehicle in this photo) up to hutten cliff camp where the scientists gave us an overview of their wedel seal research.
our timing was magical. this particular location is special because the seals here have no prey creating a perfect birthing spot. nearly forty female seals and their day old pups dotted the camps perimeter...and we got soo close.
a fabulous day in the field!!
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